Natural killer (NK) cells are innate immune cells which have been shown to kill tumors and cells infected with viruses. This knowledge however is based on studies carried out with natural killer cells isolated from blood. The female reproductive...

It is never an easy task to make reasonable decisions on how people should act to preserve natural resources and to have various stakeholders agree with such decisions. This difficulty arises for a number of reasons, including: (1) the existence of...

Despite all the efforts and progress in cancer research, cancer remains a devastating disease. After more than 120 years of research, immunotherapy provides a realistic hope to cure cancer. Several formats of immunotherapy, such as...

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides unique contrast reflecting the translational motion of water in its microscopic environment. This imaging modality has been shown to highlight infarcted regions within minutes after an...

Membrane docking and fusion are essential steps in intracellular vesicular trafficking. The underlying molecular mechanisms are highly conserved between organisms. Yeast homotypic vacuole fusion has become a paradigm in studying this fundamental...

Despite the array of targeted therapeutics that currently exist to combat breast cancer, disease progression leading to metastasis, and tumor recurrence still remains a significant clinical challenge. Efforts to identify novel pathways and...

APETALA3 (AP3) is a MADS box gene required for normal development of the petals and stamens in the Arabidopsis flower. AP3 transcriptional regulation occurs in two stages; an initial establishment phase, which is mediated by LEAFY (LFY) and UNUSUAL...

Many intracellular transport events are mediated by vesicles that bud from donor membranes and then fuse with acceptor membranes. The transport of secretory proteins between the ER and Golgi compartments of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has...

Plant MADS proteins play critical roles in vegetative and reproductive development. DNA binding and yeast three-hybrid assays suggest that plant MADS proteins function as dimers or multimers. However, little is known about how plant MADS proteins...

The present studies examine the flexible application of two stimulus-response (SR) mappings to a single set of stimuli. The following questions are addressed: (1) Can dual mapping performance equal single mapping performance (2) Can rapid map...

Circadian rhythms are found ubiquitously throughout life on the planet. These biological clocks stem from common underlying molecular architecture revolving around a time-delayed feedback oscillator driving robust, approximately 24 hour rhythms. In...

AMPA receptors are glutamate-gated ion channels that mediate most of the excitatory synaptic signals in the central nervous system. They form tetrameric assemblies that are combinations of the subunits GluR1-4, each of which contains a...

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role in cognitive processing and emotional regulation, and altered serotonergic signaling in the cortex is associated with disorders such as schizophrenia,...

Computer security has come a long way since the days of the first Internet worm. With the spreading and commercialization of the Internet, the stakes have gotten higher. Viruses existed and spread before most computers were online, but as global...

The demand for novel molecularly targeted drugs will continue to rise as we make progress toward personalizing cancer treatments to the molecular signatures of individual tumors. While the collection and analysis of genomic data has become routine,...

Estradiol is a key regulator of immune protection in the female reproductive tract (FRT). Its concentration varies during the menstrual cycle, leading to changes in innate immune protection. In this thesis, I demonstrate the multiple levels at...

Accurate chromosome segregation in human oocytes requires that meiotic sister chromatid cohesion remain intact for decades and work in model organisms indicates that deterioration of meiotic cohesion over time may be a major determinant of...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the USA and worldwide causing 160,000 and 1.5 million deaths per year, respectively. Due to the late stage of diagnosis, poor efficacy of chemotherapies (targeted and pleiotropic), and...

Production of fuel ethanol from cellulosic materials is a potentially attractive way to meet sustainability, energy security, and environmental goals. However, the high cost of processing using current technology has thus far prevented...

Many organisms recognize and respond to categories: predator, prey, rival, or juvenile. Organisms recognize these ecologically-important categories by assessing diverse sensory stimuli. A primary focus of my research has been understanding how...

During our fieldwork with real-world organizations---including those in Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), network configuration management, and the electrical power grid---we repeatedly noticed that security policies and related security artifacts...

Si/SiGe quantum dots (QDs) are promising candidates for spin-based quantum bits (qubits) as a result of the reduced spin-orbit coupling as well as the Si isotopes with zero nuclear spin. Meanwhile qubit readout is a challenge related to...

As methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) hospitalizations keep increasing, the understanding of the characteristics that make one isolate more successful over another is paramount. Strain variations among Staphylococcus aureus observed...

Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) and their associated cyclins are key regulators of cell cycle progression. Caenorhabditis elegans has two predicted A- type cyclins, encoded by the genes cya-1 and cya-2. Cyclin A has been shown to be required for...

Molecular optical imaging in vivo has potential for functional assessment of tumor tissue at the cellular and subcellular level. Advances in biological understanding of genomics and proteomics have increased the knowledge of possible cellular...

Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) are susceptible to respiratory tract infections at an early age; with the most frequent initial isolate being the Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Subsequently, these patients become chronically...